


And I looked up to the sky, looked up and saw your gold

by orphan_account



Series: once upon a time i liked black, but now all i see is gold, blood and the dead [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, Gen, Ice Skating, Just in my-au!alena pov, No character bashing, No hate just being more emotionally invested in their lives than my own at this point, This is an AU, not meant to reflect the real people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26790250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Memoirs of a journey to success
Series: once upon a time i liked black, but now all i see is gold, blood and the dead [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953565
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	And I looked up to the sky, looked up and saw your gold

Alena Kostornaia is always second.

Sure, she had a talent in skating. Sure, she was pretty and wonderful and a motivated girl.

> _Sometimes she wonders if she should just have focused on her neuroscience studies_
> 
> _Maybe she could have been great_

Alena joined Sambo-70 at an early age, in late 2017.

To be honest, Russian figure skating ladies have never been the ones to achieve the impossible. They were consistent, good performers, average. Not like Midori Ito, or Tonya Harding, or Yuna Kim or Mao Asada.

Until Yulia Lipnitskaya ensnared the world, until they saw the young, senior-debut with the face of an angel and the beauty in her skates, who could entrance the audience and make them only look right at her.

Evgenia Medvedeva was the best of the best. Technically consistent and the most superior at her time, wonderful presentation and artistry, smoothest transitions one could ever wish for. She was the star, she was the world. Even Eteri could not help but fall in love with her, acting so different around her, more open, smiling more, more caring.

> _Alena wonders if this is why Eteri seems to be so distant now that Zhenya had left, had left her, her long-time skater who was practically her daughter had abandoned her for a Canadian coach living across the world._

Alexandra Trusova was the energetic, enigmatic one. The one who would jump and jump and jump and only jump if she could. She had been a delight and a headache to work with at the same time, Eteri had once commented. Evgenia loved her. Evgenia and her were always together, never far apart, paired together whenever they had to do senior-junior drills. Sasha learnt her first quad at 14. In competition, for heaven's sake. How was Alena supposed to compete with that?

Anna Shcherbakova was another quad queen. She was elegant, graceful, her figure was the closest to Zhenya's and naturally made her another favorite of Eteri. She could eat 3 chocolates and not gain any weight, while Alena would have to slave in the gym for hours to shed it all off. Anna off-ice was a very lively, nice person to be with. Alena had always gotten along with her, maybe because she didn't catch as much attention until she landed her first quad in training, early 2018 before senior debut. Nonetheless, she was a very good friend.

Alena knew she had talent in skating. Some part of her acknowledged that, but it wasn't enough. She had to work twice as hard to keep up, she had to be twice as careful with her diet _(she still ended up going through puberty right before her senior debut anyways, although it might be more of a blessing than anything come to think of it)_.

Let it be known that every skater works hard, and could not compare how hard they had worked, but it was so much easier and natural for Sasha and Anya.

> _Okay, sue her, she was a little jealous, but she never let it affect their relationship._

Skating taught her patience, most of all. She stuck to the side lines, with Sergei Rozanov, training.

She liked Sergei, he was patient, he was nice, but he was firm and demanding in the right ways, unlike Eteri Georgievna. Eteri was a good coach, but inflexible. She did not apply different coaching methods to different skaters. Alena could not be coached the way Zhenya or Sasha was, by getting yelled at and pushed. She wanted mutual respect. She did not want to be treated like a 7 year old, wanting affection or recognition everyday.

She understood Eteri's efforts and coaching very much, and she was not the best for her, but Sergei was, and Sergei was here. So she would stay. Besides, Alina was here too.

Alina Zagitova. Olympic Champion, who won against all odds. Against Evgenia Medvedeva. Who had left, and came back right before 2017/18 season. Who had fallen, who had never won major competitions, who had somehow clawed her way back to the top in the end. Who had turned her disadvantages into her advantages. Alina was often paired with her. Anna was often paired with the other juniors, because she was a reliable one and had the potential to become a good coach. 

> _And Anna did want to be one, she had told her when she was 14 and Anna was 13, during a game of ice breaker. Alena could totally see that happening. Eteri encouraged it too._

Alina, who had took her aside one day and forced her to go out and window shop before a competition because quote, "you're too stiff alyonchka, a skater like you should be graceful and flowy, what with your wonderful costume and beautiful smile, come on, smile for me."

Alina had taught her tips and tricks to smoothen transitions from jump to landing, from spins to step sequences, from flying camel spins to y-spins.

Taught her how to hide a flutz when necessary, when you could feel that you were going to under rotate and couldn't launch yourself to the proper height.

> _Alena had done that once in front of Sergei. Sergei had tsked at Alina, who stared at him sheepishly, and made her get rid of the ridiculous move. Alena still knew how to do it, but did not need to once Sergei had stopped all their prep for a triple axel just to make her train triple combinations for Lutz, toe loop and flip. The Salchows and loops came easier._
> 
> _She had always been the best at edge jumps._

A natural, Sergei had told her mother over the phone once. Wonderful to work with. Eteri had never really seen her until she had landed a triple axel right in front of her post 2017/18 season. The look on her face when she realized how much she had overlooked her, how much she had overlooked Sergei's coaching, was the source of her motivation to start practicing it until it was perfected.

Eteri begun to coach her officially after that.

Her growth spurt offseason was not appreciated.

> _Looking back, she was actually kind of grateful that it happened before senior years and not during senior years. It was easier to learn jumps at 15 than at 18. Anna would totally re learn her jumps in a month max, while Sasha would just throw herself into a triple and accidentally land a quad because she put too much power into the jump._

She had a month of intensive training to restore her jumps. Eteri was not pleased, but accepted it.

> _She had Alina and Sasha and Anya anyways, and Kamila and Sofia and Daria were coming along brilliantly too. SAMBO-70 is a place to compete daily and a race to prove worthy of Eteri's world class coaching and choreography that would give you an advantage, which young junior wouldn't want to train there when hearing this?_

Then Alina started declining, Anna landed her first quad, then another, Sasha learnt two more.

Alena once again did not place gold.

She really wonders how Zhenya managed to accept her silver at PyeongChang.

> _Sometimes, she re watches the Olympics again and again, sees Zhenya's devastation, Eteri's happiness yet sadness for her closest skater and her glorious champion skater. Sees Alina's joy dulled because of her close friend's shock and crashing dreams._
> 
> _I_ _t was all supposed to come together for her, the ISU commentator had said. Poor Alina got a lot of media attention after that. Alena had fun helping her block toxic people. Zhenya had called her one night and told her to ignore the media, and to not let Eteri push her anymore. Alina had cried that night, hearing Zhenya again, sounding so much lighter than she had been the entire season._

Her 2019/20 season showed her results and her growth.

She had used her growth spurt to refine her jumps, her spins more fluid and powerful with more developed muscles, her figure not the skinny child she was, but the maturing, strong female. Her jumps had more power, more rotation, more consistency and less painful when she landed incorrectly as her muscles absorbed more impact instead of her bones.

Once, the coaches of sambo-70 had winced watching her wipe out train for a triple axel. Now, they saw her perform it so many times beautifully with positive GOEs that it was a normal occurrence.

Alena trains with Sasha more now. They joke, they laugh, they discuss gymnastics and life outside the rink.

She wins in Finlandia. Its not much, but she's happy.

Then she continues to win.

She beats Anna. She beats Alina. She beats Sasha, of all people. Sasha, who was invincible with her quads, with her world records of technical scores and free skate scores.

She, who had a recycled program and another program about vampires.

> _Okay, maybe an over-simplification. Those were master pieces, Eteri, Daniil, Sergei and Sergei really outdid themselves. She was eternally grateful._

At the end of every competition, she would look back and wonder, how have I come so far?

Alena knows. Hard work, bruises, sore muscles, physiotherapy, and a willingness to break herself to make herself.

She might not make it to the Olympics, with so many juniors who had not only quads but triple axels now, but she was damn well going to fight for it.

She had always looked up to see others' gold medals from the silver, bronze or stands.

Now she's on top. She might not be later. But she is now. And she's going to do anything to stay.

> _Later, she laughs at this. Sergei, who had left Eteri because of his work going unnoticed. Sasha, who had left Eteri because of her desire to jump more quads with consistency. Alina, who had temporarily left Eteri to pursue her career in journalism._
> 
> _Maybe she would too, if neuroscience proved too difficult to handle along with skating._
> 
> _Her, who had left Eteri because she was so focused on producing the next star, who was so spread out and never concentrated on one skater for long probably for fear they would be like Zhenya and leave after their successes, who did not know the intricacies of a triple axel, who had yet to find her a sponsor in this pandemic. And it was the final straw for her too, for Eteri had completely abandoned her pretense of goodwill and spat at her metaphorically._
> 
> _Maybe because she reminded her of Zhenya so much. They were both so successful in their senior debut, both so emotional, both so similar that Eteri probably ached to look at her, a mirror of her ex-student._

Alena sees the unfollow of her ex-coach, sees the post of her tossing her jacket to Eteri ( _it was actually Eteri who told her to throw to relieve her nerves, she had always done so since she joined sambo and was unable to contain her stress as a junior_ ), sees Yevgeny Plushenko and Eteri tear into each other in their "custody battle", and laughs.

> _Somehow, she thinks her leave and Sasha's contributed to Zhenya's later decision to return to Eteri._
> 
> _Its fine. She always delivered and trained in the background. She always won, in her own way._

Alena knows what she wants. And that's all she needs to know.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction, not intended to portray any skaters'/coaches' thoughts or personalities, not meant to excuse anyone, not meant to harm or hurt anyone. This is a complete au, it does not reflect the people in real life. If you have a problem with my portrayals, kindly direct yourself to the "post new work" button and write your own au, good day.


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